


what was your first reaction? (i'll tell you mine)

by blarkeontheark



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/M, WHY DO I KEEP SEEING YOU IN MY DREAMS, elhani plane flirting, it's basically like, ok so it's basically canon compliant right now, starts around the end of season 2, they were all on the same flight to australia and you cant convince me otherwise, who are you, you - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarkeontheark/pseuds/blarkeontheark
Summary: While Eleanor struggled with being a better person, Tahani took a break from the public eye, Jason tried to figure out once and for all where his life was going, and Chidi tried to put a name to the unfamiliar face cropping up in his dreams and memories that never happened.It didn't quite begin in Chidi's office. It began just a little before that.





	what was your first reaction? (i'll tell you mine)

Chidi Anagonye died because an air conditioner fell on his head.

Or, at least, that’s how he was supposed to go. That’s how he knew he was going to go.

His heart had stopped. His breathing had ceased. He’d left.

So he’d thought. For a split second.

And then he was roughly shoved aside and the unit came crashing onto the pavement, splitting into a thousand pieces.

He dropped his phone. Uzo was frozen beside him.

“Chidi?”

“Um.” Chidi couldn’t form words. “Okay. Um. That was close.”

“Chidi—”

“Hey, this has been fun.” Chidi forced a grin. “Look, I think I’m just going to head home.”

“Chidi.” Uzo looked horrified. “You just almost died!”

“Nah.” He waved a hand, looking around, desperately trying to find the person who had shoved him aside. There was almost no one else on the street.  
But it was almost as if the mysterious figure had vanished into midair. 

“Look,” he said, “I’m tired, we can’t pick a place anyway…you probably just want to get back and keep planning your wedding with your actual best man.”

Uzo fell silent.

“I’ll talk to you later?” Chidi offered.

“O…kay.”

“Cool.”

As soon as he shut his apartment door behind him, he leaned against the frame and stared at the wall.

I just died. I just died. I just died.

Correction: I just almost died.

But somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that he actually had.

…

Tahani Al-Jamil died because she pulled a statue of her sister down and the weight of it crushed her to death.

Or, at least, that’s how she was supposed to go. That’s how she knew she was going to go.

But as much as she tugged at it, the statue wouldn’t budge.

Someone grabbed at her shoulder, shoving her away from the statue. The force of it pushed her through the crowd and out a nearby door.

Twisting, she turned to catch a glimpse of the person, but the figure was gone, vanishing back into the crowd. 

Outside, she leaned against the back wall to breathe, ignoring the sounds of the music and yelling inside.

She knew as she’d tugged that that statue would come directly down on her head. She could see it happen, as if in slow motion. Except…it hadn’t.

She’d dodged a bullet. 

But she felt like it had hit her dead on.

…

Jason Mendoza died because he suffocated in a safe.

Or, at least, that’s how he was supposed to go. That’s how he knew he was going to go.

Instead, he woke up on his ratty old sofa with Pillboi frowning at the safe.

And through the pounding in his head, he could see with a bit more clarity.

“Did we pull off the heist?” he croaked.

“No, dumbass,” Pillboi said. “You hit your head trying to get into the safe and passed out.”

“I thought…” Jason frowned. “I thought we already went into the restaurant, and they called the cops, and then I couldn’t breathe and died.”

“You always have weird dreams, dawg. Hey, come on, get in the safe, we gonna get that money.”

“No.” Jason shook his head. “We can’t just rob this place. That’s wrong.”

“What the hell happened to you?” Pillboi squinted. “This was your idea, J.”

“I don’t know.” Jason stared at the ceiling, searching deep inside his head. “There’s something wrong.”

“You were passed out for like, ten minutes.”

Jason shrugged.

…

Chidi chalked it all up to a near-death experience.

His house felt unfamiliar. He kept bumping into furniture. For some reason, he felt the absence of yellows and blues. 

He kept turning around. Looking for someone. He didn’t know who he was looking for. The person didn’t exist.

There was no one.

He felt weirdly lost. 

Weirdly alone.

…

Tahani took a break.

She cancelled her charity trips. She screened her family’s (minimal) calls. She didn’t attend any award shows. 

She sat and she wrote and she thought and listed and planned. And she broke down every aspect of her life. 

She wrote down every major event of her life and she considered her motivations for it.

And she discovered what she’d always known, deep down: her sister still, after all these years, had a hold on her, and every decision in her life.

Tahani didn’t need to be famous. To have other people believe in her. She just needed to believe in herself.

And maybe, just maybe, be a little kinder.

…

After some Googling, Jason made a plan. 

He got a job at the restaurant he’d planned to rob. He started saving money. He resolved to stop blowing up boats.

It wasn’t much, he reflected, but it was a start. And at least he wasn’t making anymore molotov cocktails. 

“I could get to Miami in, like…” He squinted. “I don’t know. A while. I just gotta stop making stupid decisions.”

There was a muffled explosion from the next room.

“What the hell was that?” Pillboi asked.

“I rigged a bunch of Mentos to drop from the ceiling into a Coke bottle,” Jason grinned. "Oh. Right. Stupid decisions."

…

College started up again and Chidi lost himself in teaching, immersing himself in ethics and moral philosophy once again as he reread all his old books. 

There was something tugging at the corner of his mind as he skimmed a page, and he forced himself to slow down and read it again.

The Trolley Problem. 

Trolley. Problem.

There it was again—a flash of something. Like a weird sense of déjà vu. He could suddenly picture the tracks in front of him, and the lever to switch tracks. Could sense the feeling of barrelling down them uncontrollably.

“No time, Chidi! Make a decision!”

The unfamiliar voice jarred the image from his memory, and he was staring blankly at the page again, wondering what the hell he’d just pictured. 

He was certain he’d never heard that voice before in his life. But he needed to find out who it belonged to.

Try as he might, searching his thoughts, he couldn’t revisit the memory again. It was gone.

…

Tahani got on a plane.

She needed to get as far away as possible. A year had passed since she confronted Kamilah at the party, and she just needed some distance from her sister and her old life.

Her phone held a thousand missed calls. Blinking on her screen were texts from every possible person she’d ever corresponded with wondering where the hell she went.

While gratifying that the world missed her presence, it wasn’t what she needed. For now, she needed to be off the grid. So she booked a flight to the most off-the-grid place she could think of—Australia.  
No one was going to follow her there.

As she boarded the plane, a woman in front of her was struggling to lift a bag into the overhead compartment.

“I got it,” Tahani said, lifting the bag and shoving it into the compartment.

“Thanks, gorgeous.” The woman sounded out of breath as she squinted at Tahani. “Hey, do I know you?”

“I don’t think so,” Tahani said as they shuffled backwards. She looked slightly familiar, sure, but she was short and blonde. Tahani knew plenty of short, blonde people. “You probably just recognize me because of my work for charity. I’m Tahani Al-Jamil.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. But I’m Eleanor Shellstrop. Nice to meet you.” 

And she was gone, continuing farther back into the plane as Tahani slid into her seat by the window.

Did she recognize her?

No, that would be insane. She knew for a fact she’d never met Eleanor before. 

But she’d definitely seen her somewhere. Maybe she was onto something.

…

“Yo, check it.” Pillboi tossed Jason a crumpled magazine. “That one really hot chick with the name that sounds like sauce is headed to Australia.”

“Who?”

“That chick who wore the blue dress at the Oscars two years ago?”

“Oh, right.” Jason stared at the picture. A brief flash of her face appeared in his mind—a wedding dress. A beach. “Did she get married?”

“Not that I know of.”

“For some reason I feel like I saw a picture of her wedding.”

But that wasn’t right, either, because she was smiling at him. Smiling at Jason. 

The flash was gone, and he was frowning at the picture.

“I might be going crazy,” Jason said. “I also kinda want to marry her.”

“You should go to Australia,” Pillboi said.

“What?” Jason glanced up. “Why?”

“Why not?” Pillboi shrugged. “You’re tryna do something different with your life.”

“I do have just enough money to get there,” Jason reasoned. “I could just...figure it out along the way.”

“Dope,” Pillboi said. “I’m gonna go get some jalapeño poppers.”

As his friend headed out, Jason spared a moment to consider the insanity of this whim. He’d never left northeastern Florida. He had no idea what Australia was like. 

Which made this his specialty: a ridiculous decision with zero forethought. 

He picked up his phone.

…

Chidi had a long, uninterrupted sleep. 

His mind wandered back. Past his life. Into places he’d never been. 

Green grass. Trees everywhere. A spectacular mansion. A tiny, colorful house. 

The scene changed, and Chidi was in a kitchen. Flashes of dialogue bounced around in his head. 

“It sounds like you’ve had a really nice vacation from your full-time job.”

“Uh...Cannonball Run II!”

“Holy…motherforking…shirtballs.”

The last one was accompanied by a face—a flash of a woman in a blue and white plaid shirt, hands on her head, looking utterly shocked. 

Chidi recognized her voice, just then. She was the woman from his strange vision of the Trolley Problem. 

He jerked awake, trying to keep the scraps of his dream together. They slid from his memory and into the ether. 

And…he was late. Damn. 

…

The overnight flight was impossible to sleep on, and so Tahani rested her head on her hand and stared into the darkness, trying vainly to make out the stars. 

A flash of movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Eleanor shifting up the aisle. 

“Where are you off to?” she asked, more out of utter boredom than curiosity. 

“Trying to sneak into the first-class bathrooms, since the ones in back have a line,” Eleanor explained. “Nobody sitting next to you?”

“Apparently not,” Tahani sighed. “I don’t mind the legroom, but it is an awfully long flight.”

“Tell me about it.”

She slipped into the bathroom, leaving Tahani in silence again.

But not two minutes later, she was back, sliding into the seat next to Tahani. 

“Tell me about yourself,” she said. 

“Me?”

“No, the hairy guy down the aisle. Yeah, you, gorgeous. Your name’s Tahani, right? Why are you headed to Australia?”

“Yes. Um.” She glanced at Eleanor, who was fiddling with one of her sleeves. “I used to do quite a lot of charity work, but I realized I was doing it for the wrong reasons.” She shifted slightly. “I’m here to get a break. Reassess my decisions and figure out what to do next.”

Eleanor nodded. “Wise.”

“What about you, stranger?” She adjusted the strap of her dress. “Why are you going to Australia?”

“I’m…kind of a nightmare,” Eleanor admitted. “A really, really terrible person. But I’m trying to become a better person. And I watched a three hour lecture on YouTube by this nerdy guy teaching at a university over there. So I just figured…what the fork.”

“Fork?” Tahani repeated. 

“Yeah. I don't know, I started saying it a while ago. Somehow it sounds better.”

Tahani laughed. “So you’re going to, what, ask him to tell you how to be a better person?”

“I don’t know.” Eleanor shrugged. “I just feel like…I need to talk to him.”

“Sounds spontaneous enough.” Tahani leaned her head against the window. 

“Is your sister Kamilah, by any chance?” Eleanor asked. "You kind of look like her."

“Yes,” Tahani grumbled. 

“Wow, that must be a nightmare.”

Tahani lifted her head to stare at Eleanor. “It is!”

“I get the feeling you don’t have a great relationship with her.”

Tahani sighed. “I almost died last year.” She paused. “Well, not really, I suppose but it feels like I did. Anyway, I lost it at her induction ceremony to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and tried to pull a statue of her to the ground.”

“That’s rough.” Eleanor reached over and squeezed her hand. “I almost died last year, too. A row of shopping carts just about plowed into me and then were immediately demolished by a truck advertising boner pills.” She bit her lip. “Someone shoved me out of the way just in time.”

“That’s what happened to me, too.” Tahani said. “Someone just…shoved me out of the way and pushed me outside to regain my senses.”

“A year ago?”

“Exactly a year and two days ago.”

“Me too.”

They locked eyes, and Tahani felt that tugging at the back of her mind again. 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” she asked quietly. 

Eleanor shook her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

…

Jason was bored out of his mind. Walking the length of the plane seemed like a solid plan.

There were people sleeping, people with tiny bottles of alcohol, people bent over glowing screens, people staring out the dark, empty windows into dark, empty skies.

As he neared the first-class section, he heard giggling, and pushed aside the curtain. Sitting at the very back was a tall, tan woman with long dark hair and a short, blonde woman next to her.

He felt a jolt as the first girl lifted her head. That was her. That was Tahani.

It wasn’t a fluke—he’d definitely seen her before. In person. If only he could figure out where…

“What are you looking at?” a voice next to him snapped. It was the blonde one, squinting up at him, clearly not completely sober. 

“I feel like I know you from somewhere,” he said slowly. “Did you go to Lynyrd Skynyrd High School?”

The blonde opened her mouth, then closed it. “Are you high?”

“Probably.”

“Hold on a moment.” Tahani studied him. “He does look slightly familiar, actually.”

“Girl, you have had too much alcohol.” The other girl glanced up at Jason. “Beat it, tracksuit. She doesn’t know you.”

He shuffled backwards, pulling the curtain shut.

He’d accomplished one thing, at least—he’d met Tahani Al-Jamil.

And she knew him. Somehow.

Now he just had to figure out…from where.

…

Chidi was having a rough day. 

His students hadn’t been pleased that he was late. He’d dropped his coffee mug on the floor. He was up to his neck in grading.

And then there was a knock at his office door. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, barely looking up as an unfamiliar figure entered his office. “Office hours are—”

“Oh, I’m not a student,” she interrupted, and that’s when Chidi really looked up. “Are you Chidi Ana……Kendrick?”

“Anagonye,” he frowned, “and, yes.”

“From that long, nerdy video about the voice that tells you to be good?”

“From the Cassat Foundation lecture series on practical applications of ethical theory, yes.”

“Great.” She pulled her rolling suitcase inside. “Hi. My name is Eleanor Shellstrop.” She hesitated for a moment. “Can we talk?”

And that’s when it hit him.

The voice from his dreams. The face from his memories.

It was her.

**Author's Note:**

> tgp tumblr: @eleanorshellstr0p  
> main/the 100 tumblr: @bellamy6lake


End file.
